INNO Setup

[JohnM]

Is anyone using inno setup for distribution?

Since the 64 bit era is upon us I find myself a little confused about compiled vlx files on 32 bit machines.

I have not made the jump yet but I will soon but for now I have some questions

If you compile a vlx on a 32 bit setup then load it on a 64 bit machine are there any issues?

Do all 64 bit operating systems have a C:\Program Files (x86) folder?

Does it matter if the vlx is in the C:\Program Files folder not the (x86) folder?

[irneb]

Not sure about Inno and 64 bit. Haven't tried it on that platform before ... but I'll also need to move over to that quite soon.

 

However, I'm unsure why you need to "install" the VLX files into the x86 program files. They're not "true" compiled code. It's not as if they can be decompiled into asembly like an EXE/DLL can. They're actually just bitcoded & optimized LSP files (the FAS portion of them at least) plus a packaging of other selected files like DCLs as well (much like the java JAR files which are actually ZIP's). In that way they're a lot more like Java "compiled" class files - i.e. they are simply "optimized" source code which gets interpreted instead of just executed. ADesk has a bit of a misnomer in calling it "compiling" to VLX/FAS, but they're not alone in this misnaming - even Sun (now Oracle) used the word "compile" for the java to class & to jar thingy.

 

The point behind all this is that LSP/FAS/VLX is still running inside of AutoCAD. So the OS "shouldn't" make any difference, neither should 32/64 bit. That's the whole idea behind interpreted languages instead of compiled. Now if you did an ARX / DotNet DLL, this might have been an issue - since those are literally compiled in 32/64 bit from C++/C#/VB.Net. But even if such is the case, it wouldn't matter to AutoCAD where you placed these files. You can have them anywhere AC can reach them, even a folder not under either of the Program Files folders. Sometimes windows has issues running DLL/EXE files off certain folders (especially network shared folders), but interpreted files are simply read and not executed so they should "run" from anywhere.

 

My major issue with 64 bit is the slight differences in the registry. I usually try to avoid registry in my lisps these days - rather just save settings into a file, and if you want it per user make such file in the roam-able user folder. Works fine in any windows.

 

BTW, do you use AcadInst together with Inno? Or do you use Inno's built-in Pascal-like scripting to setup things like CUI / support paths / etc? AcadInst makes it a bit more "easy", otherwise you need to read&write the registry with that pascal script (takes me back a few years, make that little under 2 decades ). Not to mention working with XML for the new CUI stuff . Unfortunately AI's free version has a whole plethora of nag screens, guess the author want's his cut :wink:!

 

So to stop my "rambling", AFAIK it shouldn't matter where you place any of your VLXs. As long as that folder can be read by the user, ACad should be able to "execute" the files. That's usually why ACad "requires" an administrator user permission, other types of permissions have numerous restrictions on registry and some folders.

[JohnM]

I was using acadinstall but they have decided to stop developing it so it will not work on newer versions of AutoCAD. What a shame I really liked it. And come to find out that was some of my issues with my clients loading my programs on their new machines. My program was looking for a particular reg path but since acadinstall failed the path was not written and I though it was inno setup making the path (duhh)